Assessment, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest Biodiversity

Conservation and Sustainable Use (sustainable forest management)
Australia has developed or adapted several forest planning tools useful in landuse planning and sustainable
use of resources. These tools were used extensively to facilitate the development of options for sustainable
forest management. They included tools for, (a) designing efficient reserve systems and, (b) understanding
consequential effects on the sustainable use and supply of wood. Examples include, Whatif?/LUPIS, a land-use
allocation model; SPECTRUM, a forest planning model for determining sustainable yield and use; C-Plan, a
conservation reserve selection method that allocates areas of conservation priority to the reserve system.
Whatif?/LUPIS enabled management intentions to be spatially presented and balanced through specification
of goals and guidelines. SPECTRUM provided the capacity to model silvicultural regimes and prescriptions
and their consequential temporal effects on a range of values. These tools provided perspectives on how to
model practices and regimes across the forest landscape. The knowledge gained through the use of these tools
contributed to the development of the Regional Forest Agreements and understanding of the sustainability of
practices and management regimes. C-Plan was used in the development of the Comprehensive, Adequate
and Representative reserve system for all four Regional Forest Agreement regions in New South Wales.
ECOPLAN, which was developed to help undertake assessments associated with regional forest agreements, is
a suite of concepts, methods and software useful in biodiversity assessments and ecological planning.
Capabilities of ECOPLAN include:
• fauna and flora assessment tools useful in setting conservation targets based on population viability
analysis principles and management requirements for conservation;
• data auditing facilities to assist in identifying data errors, data gaps, areas for priority surveys and
efficacy/efficiency of surveys;
• spatial modelling facilities for individual species based on statistical relationships between species
and the presence of biological entities and environmental data;
• reserve design tools based on optimising conservation goals while reducing socio-economic
impacts.
An important element of Australia’s commitment to the maintenance of biodiversity values is the work on
implementation of both national and sub-national (regional) indicators for sustainable forest management,
drawing on the Montreal Process Working Group. Australia has endorsed the Montreal Process framework of
seven criteria and 67 indicators for monitoring and reporting on forest values at a national level as well as
providing a basis for the development of regional indicators. A coordinated approach to monitoring trends in
the sustainability of forest management practice, forest environment conditions and values and socioeconomic
values is in place and being achieved through reporting on sub-national criteria and indicators. The
State of the Forests Report that is produced every five years is a public and international reporting mechanism
that helps to support Australia’s achievements of sustainable management practice, together with the
development of sustainability indicators as part of the monitoring cycle for Regional Forest Agreements.
The Australian Forestry Standard, which is currently under development, once finalised will be a nationally
endorsed standard that draws on the international frameworks of Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators,
the requirements of like initiatives such as the pan-European Forest Certification scheme, and the
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001 environmental management system series. The
Standard distils community values and the science of forest management to develop biological,
environmental, social, indigenous and economic forest management performance criteria and requirements
to ensure forests are well managed and ecologically sustainable forest management practice is promoted. The
Standard will reflect broad stakeholder support. While the Standard is voluntary it will assist in certification of
Australian forest products. Through its use the Standard will promote sustainable practices in forests managed
for wood production regardless of ownership, forest type or whether it is natural forest or plantation.
Australia is well placed to continue to achieve the conservation of biological diversity through the application
and continual improvement of ecologically sustainable management practice. The elements described above
are recognised by the Commonwealth of Australia as fundamental to meet its obligations with respect to
forests as envisaged by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
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